Free e-text of ""Us"" by Mary Louisa S. Molesworth.
CHAPTER IX. CROOKFORD FAIR 156
CHAPTER X. A BOAT AND A BABY 177
CHAPTER XI. A SAD DILEMMA 197
CHAPTER XII. GOOD-BYE TO "US" 218
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
IN ANOTHER MOMENT TOBY'S NOSE WAS IN THE BOWL TOO,
TO TOBY'S SUPREME CONTENT Front.
FROM BEHIND SOME STUBBLE A FEW YARDS OFF ROSE THE
FIGURE OF THE YOUNG BOY WHOM THE CHILDREN HAD
SEEN WALKING BEHIND THE GIPSIES--WHISTLING
WHILE HE CUT AT A BRANCH HE HELD IN HIS HAND Page 74
"HERE'S SOME SUPPER FOR YOU. WAKE UP, AND TRY
AND EAT A BIT. IT'LL DO YOU GOOD" 89
"THEY WANT OUT A BIT," SHE SAID. "THEY'RE TIRED
LIKE WITH BEING MEWED UP IN THERE ALL DAY AND
NEVER A BREATH OF AIR--NO WONDER" 132
"UPON MY WORD THEY ARE SOMETHING QUITE OUT OF THE
COMMON," HE SAID; "I WOULDN'T HAVE MISSED
THEM FOR A GOOD DEAL. WHAT A KING AND QUEEN
OF THE PIGMIES, OR 'BABES IN THE WOOD,' THEY'D
MAKE" 173
"I DO FINK WHEN US IS QUITE BIG AND CAN DO AS US
LIKES, US MUST HAVE A BOAT LIKE THIS, AND ALWAYS
GO SAILING ALONG" 195
"She is telling them stories of the wood,
And the Wolf and Little Red Riding-Hood."
_The Golden Legend._
CHAPTER I.
HOW THEY CAME TO BE "US."
"Blue were their eyes as the fairy-flax,
Their cheeks like the dawn of day."
LONGFELLOW.
A soft rather shaky sort of tap at the door. It does not all at once reach the rather deaf ears of the little old lady and tall, still older gentleman who are seated in their usual arm-chairs, one with his newspaper by the window, the other with her netting by the fire, in the exceedingly neat--neat, indeed, is no word for it--"parlour" of Arbitt Lodge. In what part of the country this queerly-named house was--is still, perhaps--to be found there is no particular reason for telling; whence came this same queer name will be told in good time. The parlour suited _its_ name anyway better far than it would that of "drawing-room," which would be given it nowadays. There was a round table in the middle; there were high-backed mahogany chairs against the wall, polished by age and careful rubbing to that stage of dark shininess which makes even mahogany pleasant to the eye, and with seats of flowering silk damask whose texture must have been _very_ good to be so faded without being worn; there were spindle-legged side-tables holding inlaid "papier-mache" desks and rose-wood work-boxes, and two or three carved cedar or sandal-wood cases of various shapes. And, most tempting of all to my mind, there were glass-doored cupboards in the wall, with great treasures of handleless teacups and very fat teapots, not to speak of bowls and jugs of every form and size; and everything, from the Indian box with the ivory chessmen to the china Turk with his long pipe of green spun-glass, sitting cross-legged on the high mantelpiece between a very sentimental lady and gentleman, also of china, who occupied its two ends,--_everything_ was exactly and precisely in its own place, in what had been its own place ever since the day, now more than thirty years ago, when Grandpapa, the tall old gentleman, had retired from the army on half-pay and come to settle down at Arbitt Lodge for the rest of his life with Grandmamma and their son Marmaduke. A very small Marmaduke, for he was the only one left of a pretty flock who, one after the other, had but hovered down into the world for a year or two to spread their tiny wings and take flight again, leaving two desolate hearts behind them. And in this same parlour at Arbitt Lodge had _that_ little Marmaduke learned to walk, and then to run, to gaze with admiring eyes on the treasures in the glass cupboards, to play bo-peep behind the thick silken curtains, even in _his_ time faded to a withered-leaf green, to poke his tiny nose into the bowl of pot-pourri on the centre table, which made him sneeze just exactly as--ah! but I am forgetting--never mind, I may as well finish the sentence--just exactly as it made "us" sneeze now!
After the tap came a kind of little pattering and scratching, like baby taps, not quite sure of their own existence; then, had Grandpapa's and Grandmamma's ears been a very little sharper, they could not but have heard a small duel in words.
"_You_, bruvver, my fingers' bones is tired."
"I _told_ you, sister," reproachfully, "us should always bring old Neddy's nose downstairs with us. They never hear _us_ tapping."
Then a faint sigh or two and a redoubled assault, crowned with success. Grandmamma, whom after all I am not sure but that I have maligned in calling her deaf--the taps were so very faint really!--Grandmamma looks up from her netting, and in a thin but clear voice calls out, "Come in!"